Sunday Morning Quarterback responds to our Monday piece on recruiting, and of course does so in a cogent, intelligent manner. This of course means we understand none of it. Jos keeeding!
Ees good stuff, Tina Fey. Just look:
Still, athletes aren't bound to go to college, and have the same option as any potential student: enter school, or enter the marketplace. NFL rules - probably wisely, though the sports' inherent physicality ensures the "problem" is not on the same scale as the NBA's - prohibit athletes from coming straight from high school, but there is no general rule prohibiting a player from entering another pro league in the meantime, or, if the exploitation were great enough, for many players to form a three-year developmental league that would serve the same purpose, in terms of the ultimate goal of signing an NFL contract, as college.
A very, very good point, though it may be cruel in the long run to insist on foisting the NFL Europe any longer than is absolutely necessary. (Think of Barcelona and those poor dragons. Those poor, poor dragons.) Athletes are free to enter the market. The Arena League in particular seems positioned to fill this role as a developmental league. Those non-academic qualifiers Michael Lewis and we opine over? Why couldn't they try out for the Tampa Bay Storm or the local padded wall scorefestmeisters of their choice?
The original point of our post still remains though: we're trying to explain why recruiting is creepy, not necessarily fix it. Really poor kids with few financial options are being approached by large financial entities offering them opportunity they aren't prepared to fully exploit. In addition to this, they receive compensation grossly inequal to the work they put in as semi-pros. SMQ's going to have some numbers, which we're waiting with scalpel in hand for--warning, impending math use by liberal arts majors!!!--and we can't wait to see it.